


Jealous of Your Cigarette

by suburbanmotel



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gratuitous Swearing, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Smoking, gratuitous smoking, oral fixations, sexualized smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanmotel/pseuds/suburbanmotel
Summary: I’m jealous of your cigaretteAnd all the things you do with itI’m jealous of your cigaretteAnd the pleasure that you get from itAnd not me-- Hawksley Workman“The way you smoke,” Liam says. He shakes his head like he’s coming out from underwater or out of a deep sleep. Maybe he is. He moves closer. “The way your mouth moves. Your tongue.”Zayn stops moving completely. He just stops and stares at Liam, every muscle still and frozen, watching and waiting, lit cigarette tucked lightly between his elegant fingers. “What?”“Like, you don’t even know." Liam licks dry lips. "You don’t get it. You don’t know what it does to me. Whatyoudo to me.”





	Jealous of Your Cigarette

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little short and a little dirty that I've been working on for awhile and decided to just finish and post already!

\--

_The term “smoking” wasn’t established until the late 17th century. Before then, it was often referred to as “Dry Drunkenness.”_

\--

Zayn smokes.

Liam does not smoke, at least not in the beginning.

They all come to the band fairly young and mostly uninitiated in the various vices of the world. They’re no angels, of course, but they’re not quite devils, not yet.

Liam _has_ smoked, of course, a drag or two here and there off a friend’s cigarette at a party, after a few beers, but the resulting coughing fit and ensuing nausea quickly put an end to that. Everyone laughed and Liam blushed and laughed along good-naturedly and sipped at his beer and cursed his life.

Smoking is disgusting, he tells himself at the time. It’s disgusting and horrid for your health and expensive and it kills you and all of these undeniable facts make him feel a bit better.

Imagine _kissing_ a smoker?

Ugh. Gross.

_No._

Except, _Zayn_ smokes.

And Liam is fully, painfully aware that Zayn smokes. He’s known this for as long as he’s known Zayn, which is going on a year now. Zayn started smoking more seriously about six months after the band fully got going, moving under its own steam, gathering power and strength and fans. Oh, and Louis smokes, too, so it’s him and Louis, partners in crime, partners in vice. They smoke together before shows, after shows, huddled together in the cold of winter, in the blazing summer sun, heads together, laughing, smoke billowing around and above them. Liam watches them both, sometimes from a distance and sometimes right next to them, elbows bumping, eyes watering, but it’s only Zayn who mesmerizes him. Only Zayn’s full red, mouth that makes him feel and think things he really shouldn’t be feeling.

Suck in, smile, breathe out. Suck in. Smile. Breathe. Out. Repeat as necessary, or at least until those watching your every move feel either the necessity to scream or cry or suck on your neck or any other body part until everything comes to a foregone conclusion.

It’s dangerous really — both the habit and the watching — when you think about it, at least according to Liam, who is one of those watching. Always watching. Cataloguing. Full red lips pursing, tongue curling both hard and soft and always relentless, pressing hard, throat muscles working to receive what it wants. As an innocent but fully invested bystander, it’s hypnotic, it’s beautiful, it’s fucking _sexual_. It gets to him, all of it. Zayn has always gotten to him, right from the start, gotten to him in so many way, not just when he’s been smoking but when he’s just being. Singing, laughing, sleeping, moving, breathing.

Liam doesn’t drink much, even now, but watching Zayn, watching that burning white stick move between his hand and his mouth, over and over, that smoke billow out over and over, those lips pucker and pull, well, Liam feels drunk. Even though he’s completely dry.

\--

_French anthropologist and ethnologist Claude Levi-Strauss argues that people smoking tobacco together reinforces personal relationships and often serves as a type of social initiation._

\--

It’s the sudden change in temperature that could end up doing him in, stepping from the intensely hot, cloying interior of the arena before a show into the frigid winter air just outside the large metal doors. It’s Toronto, tonight, January, the kind of cold that bites deep into your skin and doesn’t let go for hours. Liam takes a steadying breath, which might be a mistake, because suddenly he can’t breathe, his lungs are paralyzed mid-breath and he thinks idly this might be what drowning feels like.

He knows Zayn is out here because he saw him duck out with Louis, and Gazza and Kip, two of the crew members and against better judgment he decides to follow. He doesn’t consider why — he’s not going to smoke, he never does unless he’s out at a club, and even then it’s one or two drags, just like always — so why on earth would he join them in sub-zero temperatures in the dark wearing only a T-shirt? He tries frantically to come up with a plausible explanation but then it’s too late. The door creaks open, insanely loud in the cold, then shuts hard against a rock someone has jammed in the bottom and Liam jumps at the noise. He feels guilty for some stupid reason, like he doesn’t have a right to be out here with them, even if it’s only Zayn and Louis and two guys he’s known for years now. He stands still for a minute, eyes adjusting to the dark illuminated by one overhead spotlight. It’s snowing, those impossibly fine flakes you can barely see unless you’re really looking. The show starts in less than half an hour so he asks himself, again, what he’s thinking, coming out here when he should be warming up or focusing or doing sit-ups or—

“Liam?” It’s Zayn, of course — that unmistakable voice, deep, husky from smoke and cold and slightly questioning — who has spotted him instantly, spotted his silhouette, his outline, the slope of his nose, whatever. He startles, looks to the left where four shadowy figures are now watching him. He feels his face flush hot, feels the tiny flakes settle on his skin and sizzle away. Liam takes a steadying breath and readies himself to make some crack about how he took a wrong turn and got lost and could someone point him in the Right Direction haha.

Ha.

“Oi, Liam!” Louis is shouting now, voice on the verge of a laugh. “Whatcha out here for, mate?” Liam sees four bright red ash eyes winking in the dark, plumes of smoke billowing and swirling and mingling with the January snow.

Liam moves towards them, biting his lip, berating his stupid life choices, wondering if it’s too late to turn around and go back without a word, but that would look even weirder, wouldn’t it? He doesn’t know. He loses all sense of what constitutes healthy social interaction rules when it comes to Zayn, apparently. He gives a little wave and moves even closer. He can feel all their eyes on him, he can feel _Zayn_ ’s eyes on him, dark and curious.

“Everything ok?” Zayn asks. “We’re not late are we?”

“No no, nothing like that,” Liam says. Fuck it’s cold. He wraps his arms around himself, noticing at the last minute that _they_ all have jumpers and jackets on. Right. Gooseflesh breaks out on his bare arms, up the back of his neck to his scalp. Idiot. And Zayn notices right away, of course he does.

“Mate, it’s bloody freezing out here. You’ll catch cold.” And he moves to _shrug his coat off to give to Liam._ Liam almost starts weeping. He wraps his arms tighter and bounces on his heels and wills himself to stop shivering.

“Stop Zayn, really, thank you, I mean I’m fine.” He realizes he’s babbling and forces himself to stop that as well. “I just popped out for a bit. Got hot running around. Needed to uh cool off for a minute.”

“Well you’ll cool your bollocks right off out here,” Louis says and everyone laughs. Liam laughs too because it beats crying. Zayn doesn’t seem convinced but his jacket stays put and he drops his butt to the ground where he grinds it under one heel. It’s so incredibly fucking cool and sensual that all the spit in Liam’s mouth dries up. He starts coughing and Louis thumps him on the back, hard. Liam, caught off guard, stumbles a bit and Zayn hits Louis’ arm in retaliation, hard. 

“What?” Louis says, all innocence and light. “I may have just saved his life. You’re welcome Liam.”

“Arse,” Zayn says.

“Dick,” Louis replies, always so fond.

The others finish up shortly and then they’re tumbling back inside, grumbling about the cold and the snow and Canada’s latitude but Liam is too shell-shocked to say much because Zayn has an arm wrapped around him, fingers digging in, tugging him close, one hand moving up and down his bare arm as if to warm it.

“Silly boy,” he whispers against the side of Liam’s head so no one else can hear. “What would I do if you got sick?” And Liam feels soft lips there, just at his jaw, and he smells smoke and Zayn’s cologne and it takes every ounce of his strength to not pass out in the stadium hallway.

\--

_Some people (mostly males) can be aroused by the sight of a smoker smoking._

\--

They’re at a club, all five of them, and it’s a birthday, so it’s a happy celebration. It’s Liam’s birthday and for once there are no beards included. It’s an Actual Birthday Celebration with Liam’s friends and some family, cousins and his boys and no paps and he can’t remember the last time he felt this free, this happy, this _invisible_ is what he’s thinking.

There are lots of high-fives and lots of big, meaningful hugs and lots of shots bought and pounded and shared and it’s Liam’s favourite music and it’s close and intimate and it’s _fun_ and sometimes he forgets what having _fun_ feels like these days.

And he’s older now and he’s been around a bit and he’s drinking and he’s taken a few hits of whatever Louis has and is offering and what Andy has and is offering but he still feels so _good_ and he feels safe and happy and he just dances and sings and thinks _ok good right now life is good it’s not perfect but it never is right it’s good it’s good it’s good_.

And Zayn is there of course and he gives Liam more than one two-armed hugs and sloppy kisses on the cheek, almost alarmingly close to his mouth but not quite there of course (of course) but Liam hasn’t even let himself question this or analyze it because it’s his fucking _birthday_ and all he wants to do is have Fun and Forget and maybe that’s the title of the next song he’ll write (Hey Louis! It’s called FUN AND FORGET and it’s about how I want to Fuck Zayn what do you think!) but then he starts to come down a bit and he looks around and realizes he can’t see Zayn right at this moment and he really really wants to see Zayn Right At This Moment so he asks around and apparently he’s slipped outside for a smoke break of course of course so Liam casually finds out where and he follows him.

And finds him.

And he’s blessedly alone, no Partner In Vice this time.

For once Zayn doesn’t see him immediately. He has found a quiet and dark alcove outside the club and he’s leaning against the rough stone of the club’s exterior, head tilted back, cigarette moving slowly but methodically between his mouth and down beside his hip. Occasionally he flicks the ash off, cool as anything, fingers long and elegant, throat long and elegant as he breathes and swallows, smiles and sucks. He doesn’t look sad or mad or contemplative in particular: He just looks like Zayn. Liam’s Zayn, smoking in the dark outside a club in London, jeans and chunky boots and leather jacket even though it’s warm and for once Liam doesn’t feel like he’s intruding, even though he probably is.

Fuck it. It’s his fucking _birthday._

Liam can’t stop staring at him. The quick pull at his mouth, the inhale, the pause, the exhale. But in the end it’s the mouth, it’s the lips, it’s all of it. And it’s Liam’s birthday. And Liam has been drinking. And “partaking.” And he’s getting hard. He can’t help it. His fucking cock is responding to everything about Zayn and everything that Zayn represents and that he hasn’t spoken about. So he pushes down a bit on his crotch and watches Zayn as Zayn watches the sky.

The tip of the cigarette touches the tip of Zayn’s lips and Liam dares to imagine the tongue there as well, touching the tip of the cigarette. He moves closer without thought, like Zayn is the hypnotist drawing his subject near and nearer with the practiced and clever crook of a finger.

“Jesus Zayn,” he says at last when he gets a bit closer, close enough that Zayn can hear him. It feels like his mouth is moving very slowly. Through molasses. Filled with novocaine. Stuffed with cotton.

“Hey Birthday Boy,” Zayn says. He says it so slowly and so thoughtfully and so full of meaning and Liam can’t quite fully comprehend it all so he just keeps staring. “You ok?”

Liam doesn’t know how to respond. He’s not ok. He’s really not. He’s going to be honest for once.

“The way you smoke,” Liam says. He shakes his head like he’s coming out from underwater or out of a deep sleep. Maybe he is. He moves closer. “The way your mouth moves. Your tongue. _Fuck_.”

Zayn stops moving completely. He just stops and stares at Liam, every muscle still and frozen, watching and waiting, cigarette tucked lightly between his elegant fingers. “What?”

“Like, you don’t even know. You don’t get it. You don’t know what it does to me. What _you_ do to me.” Fuck he really is drunk. He must be fucking drunk. Well it’s his birthday. Ok then. He forgives himself. Happy Fucking Birthday. “You have this effect on me, the way you move the way you smell everything about you fuck the cigarette the smoke your mouth your tongue all of it. I don’t know.”

“Liam?” Zayn’s voice is very quiet now. Neither one of them is moving at all and the smoke from his cigarette has long dissipated, circling around his head and gone.

Liam stops talking.

“Are you drunk, Liam?” Zayn stops smoking, just looks at him. “I mean, it’s fine if you are. It’s good it’s fine. It’s your birthday! Fuck. And ok. I kind of am too. Drunk I mean. It’s all good. I just want to check before I ask too many questions.”

“What kind of questions?” Liam says. He’s almost close enough to touch now. But he won’t touch. Not yet.

“Just,” Zayn turns to look directly at him, right in his face. The music from Liam’s birthday celebration thuds dully against the walls they lean against. Yeah Liam might be drunk but for the first time in a long time he’s thinking very clearly.

“Just what?” Liam grabs hold of one of Zayn’s slim wrists, his fingers circling it, tightening against thin skin there, veins and pulsing blood, life and all those fucking questions he can’t ask or answer.

“What Liam?” Zayn keeps looking at him. “What do you want? Tell me.”

“It’s my birthday,” he whispers, like that’s the answer to pretty much every question ever asked.

“Happy birthday beautiful,” Zayn whispers. His tongue darts out, licks against his dry, smoke-chapped lips, quick as a chameleon’s.

“Thank you,” Liam says, and steps even closer.

“What do you want?” Zayn says. “Tell me.”

Liam wishes he could. Honestly, he’d like nothing better than to share all his deepest darkest secrets and desires. He really would. But he takes into consideration all the possibilities and answers and repercussions and he backs away a tiny bit and says, “I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” Zayn pauses and considers. “Look. Sometimes I feel like you’re watching me.” His voice is quiet in the dark. “Like, when I’m not looking. You’re watching me. Just watching me. And I’m not sure what you’re thinking. Like if it’s a good watching or bad watching.”

Liam takes a moment before he replies. “It’s a good watching. Definitely.”

Zayn nods. He smells like smoke. Everything smells like smoke right now. The air is on fire. Liam’s heart is on fire.

“It’s my birthday,” Liam says at last and it’s pathetic, kind of, but it’s the only thing he can come up with. His brain is numb and dumb and well, it is his fucking birthday after all. It really is.

“Do you want a birthday kiss then?” Zayn asks quietly, quietly enough that if he’s horribly off base he won’t embarrass himself too much. But Liam hears him and he nods.

“Yes,” he says to clarify and they both lean into the space that separates them and let their lips touch. And it’s everything not but also not enough and Liam has imagined all of it (with a checklist) and more over the years. Zayn’s lips are soft but slightly chapped and dry (check) and his breath smells like smoke (check) and his chest hitches just a bit (check) and his tongue touches Liam’s just every so lightly like he’s experimenting and curious but also happy and turned on maybe (check?) and Zayn’s hand, cool and dry and slightly trembling, moves up to cup Liam’s cheek and jaw and his fingers tighten as their mouths press closer (check) and Liam dares to flick his tongue out just a bit to test the waters and Zayn reciprocates a tiny tiny bit (check check fucking check) and then Zayn pulls back (what?), fingers still touching Liam’s jaw and he speaks or rather, finishes his question with a voice rough and shaking—

“So, what then? What are you thinking, when you look at me like that?” The weight of anticipation is heavy between them and there are a million words Liam could shout could whisper could scream but of course of course right then the balcony doors open and a million people spill out all looking for him looking for The Birthday Boy looking for another reason to drink and yell and celebrate and toast and who is Liam to deny? He locks eyes with Zayn one more time before he pulls his fingers away from that slim pulsing wrist and allows himself to be pulled into the gathering tide of celebration.

Hours later, when the party is done and his friends are gone and his head is starting to pound and he’s all alone (of course!) in his bed Liam remembers in spectacular technicolour embarrassment all the words and thoughts and yearnings that came tumbling out of his mouth like vomit while he watched Zayn smoke and he pushes his hot face into his cool pillow as hard as he can. He stops breathing for a minute and lets hot tears gather at the corners of his eyes. Then he remembers something else, something his mum used to say, years ago, usually around the holidays, special events when there was lots of food, food to excess, delicious, tempting food within reach and plenty of it. She’d lean back and stare at the ceiling, cheeks flushed, eyes fluttering close, voice pleading and joking but pleading too, gesturing at whatever lay before her, both enticing and dangerous: _Please, just take it away. Take it away from me. I can’t stop. I can’t stop myself._

And that was it, right there. That was exactly how Liam felt about Zayn these days.

Too enticing.

Too dangerous.

I can’t stop.

I can’t help myself.

Yeah.

Ok.

He had to get away.

\--

_The cigarette and cigar are recognized phallic symbols._

\--

It’s only a two-week break and it’s too long and not nearly long enough. He sequesters himself in his parents’ house, in their living room, in a sort of blanket fort, to be exact. His mobile sits on the polished coffee table, untouched, but every time he gets a text it buzzes and moves, just a tiny bit. Within an hour of his first day in the blanket fort it almost falls off the table twice.

“Do you want me to pass you your phone?” his mum asks politely after his pushes it back from the edge with his socked toe.

“No thanks.”

“Ok.”

They sit together, bad telly going softly in the background, neither one acknowledging the fact that Liam has both built a rather impressive fort of pillows and blankets around his body and that he’s steadfastly ignoring a rather impressive barrage of incoming texts and emails that could be important.

They’re not important, he thinks. They’re just people bothering me, asking where I am, what I’m doing, mates who know I’m home wanting to party, to get shitfaced, to stay out all night doing god knows what.

Nothing and no one important enough to bother looking.

Late on the first day it starts ringing. His phone starts ringing and doesn’t stop and Karen, who has done the shopping and prepared dinner and asked Liam three times if he wouldn’t like to get up to do something starts to look a bit alarmed.

“Sure you don’t want me to…check? For you?”

Liam unearths his head from a fluffy white blanket and sighs. Everything hurts.

“I just. I just need a break. You know?”

Karen nods like she knows — she does know, she really does, but still — she bites her bottom lip and looks at her son. He can feel the weight of her gaze on him and finally he raises his eyes and looks back.

“Have you heard from the lads? Any of them?”

And he knows what she means, what “lad” in particular she’s referring to because he’s told her, over time, all about it, about his embarrassing crush, about the kiss, about the flirting and the back and forth and the pain in his chest that never really seems to go away no matter how much he laughs and jokes and runs like a maniac around the stage, sweat flying, fists pumping, voice soaring.

“I don’t know,” he says, and laughs, because he really doesn’t. His phone buzzes again, moving along the tabletop. And again. And once more. He laughs. Karen laughs. They both laugh. It’s funny but not really but they laugh and pretend that it is anyway.

\--

His mobile rings late at night and he’s not asleep and he can’t ignore all the calls, not anymore and it’s Zayn’s number and name and face that comes up and Liam can’t sleep. So. He’s trying to sleep. He’s been trying to sleep every night since he got home and some nights are successful but most are sad and lonely and he tosses and turns and he grabs himself and tries to make himself feel better and maybe he does for a moment but then it’s over and he’s sad and lonely again.

He thumbs his phone on but doesn’t respond immediately.

“Li,” is all he hears, but it’s enough, it’s more than enough. His heart stutters and his cock goes almost fully hard.

“Yeah,” he breathes into the phone. 

“You alone?”

“Yeah,” Liam breathes again and he doesn’t add _What do you mean? Yes of course I’m alone like it’s after midnight where would I be? Of course I’m alone like fuck I’m alone yes._

“I’ve been calling,” Zayn says. “Like, a lot.” His voice is soft and muffled but sad, too, and Liam responds to that, he understands it, he knows Zayn is upset but doesn’t want to let Liam know this so he’s playing it cool and trying to talk to Liam and trying to be cool but talking to him as well. “You haven’t been answering.” His voice trails off here almost to silent and Liam bites back an actual groan and rolls onto his stomach because there’s so much he could say so much he wants to say always always.

“Sorry yeah. I haven’t. I haven’t been.” He sighs loudly then puts the phone away from his mouth and scrubs a hand over his face. “Haven’t felt like talking. Like.”

“Ok,” Zayn says. “No talking then.”

“Ok,” Liam says and he probably sounds more relieved than he even feels because Zayn immediately huffs out a laugh which makes Liam laugh too. “What are you doing?” Just to say something

“No talking Liam, I’m serious,” Zayn says and he _sounds_ fucking serious is the thing. And his voice is deeper and even rougher than usual and Liam wonders, of course, if he’s been smoking or is even, fuck, smoking right now. It’s possible. He’s at home, in his own room, and he could be smoking, could be sucking on a cigarette right at this moment and oh fuck. Liam pushes down on his cock, which has suddenly twitched and hardened. Liam finally makes a noise of ascension, or at least he hopes he does, because he doesn’t want Zayn to stop talking not ever. And then he hears it, a long husky indrawn breath and he knows. He knows.

Zayn is smoking.

“You like that right?” Deep breath in. Satisfied voice. Smug even. “I finally figured it out. All that time you were watching me and pretending not to. All that time I caught you out of the corner of my eye, licking your lips, eyes on my lips, my mouth, I finally figured out what was going on, Li.”

Liam bites his lip pushes down harder. He might make the tiniest noise though because Zayn _moans_ it’s a little moan it’s almost silent but Liam hears it fuck does he.

“You know what I’m doing right now?”

Liam nods and might let out a little noise. He might. Because he can picture Zayn’s lips and mouth and teeth and saliva and skin and he moans because he can’t help it.

He can hear Zayn grin, tight and hard and _smug_.

“Yeah I knew it, Liam. You fucking like watching me smoke. You get off on it. My little habit, my oral fixation yeah? You like watching me suck on something and you can’t explain it, not to yourself and not to me but I know why. I know what it is, jesus.”

Liam gives up. He surrenders. He slips his hand down under his briefs and grips himself tight. He groans again. And Zayn groans, too, even louder.

“Fuck Liam. Fuck. Like seriously.” Liam hears his deep breath in and Liam slides fingers up and down his cock giving up completely, swiping at the wet at the tip and then sliding back down again. “You’re touching yourself,” Zayn says unnecessarily.

“Yeah,” Liam says. “I am.”

“Good,” Zayn says though it sounds like it hurts him to say it. “Good.”

“You?” Liam asks but his voice hitches and his chest hitches and his fingers hitch on his cock.

There’s a pause and another deep breath in and long exhale out and fuck if that doesn’t almost send Liam almost over the edge right then.

“Not yet, Liam,” Zayn says, his voice low and concentrated. “Right now I’m _smoking_.” He draws the word out long and low, the bastard. “I’m sucking on a cigarette and you know what?”

Liam’s hand speeds up. He can feel electricity up and down his cock building and growing, balls tightening. It won’t take long, this.

“What?” he whispers. He’s almost there. His back arches, just a bit, his feet arch too, toes digging into the mattress.

“I’m imagining sucking on _you_ ,” Zayn says and before the sentence even leaves his mouth Liam is coming with a low grown bordering on a shout, mouth falling open, eyes falling shut his entire body shaking and trembling as he spurts over his fist and his taut stomach, aftershocks thrumming through his heated skin for a minute until he’s able to form a cohesive word.

“Zayn,” is what he manages to say. There’s silence on the other end. No, that’s not quite true. There’s a ragged, drawn breath, a low grown away from the phone, like the phone has been dropped on the bed in order to properly finish a job.

Liam pants and gains his breath and waits. And waits.

“Zayn?” he says again, quieter, calmer.

And eventually it’s, “’Night Liam,” and the line goes dead.

\--

_Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times. Mark Twain_

\--

And they don’t talk about it. 

When the break is over and they see each other again they smile a bit and look away and then look back and then Liam’s entire face and body is alight with fire and smoke and when no one is looking Zayn hooks his baby finger around Liam’s and holds it tight tight like a secret they share and Liam guesses they do.

They don’t kiss, not yet, or anything else, not yet, but there’s an unspoken agreement, isn't there? There’s a shared experience there, a common knowledge, there’s something there between them that they haven’t told to anyone.

And it’s almost as if they’re avoiding being alone for the first few weeks after the break and honestly, Liam is ok with that. He really is. He can barely look at Zayn, let alone think about what he might do to him if they were alone together in a room.

And Liam strokes himself to completion, over and over, remembering everything, every word, every drawn breath, every syllable, and he’s not ashamed, not at all, but he’s frustrated and he wants. He wants more.

He wants _Zayn_.

But then the frustration and anger sets in, as time continues to pass and Zayn continues to avoid him, avoid touching him, avoid looking at him, avoid anything with him.

Almost like nothing happened between them at all.

But he continues to smoke, oh yes he does, and he continues to smoke with Louis before shows, after shows, late at night, whenever the mood strikes them.

Liam happens upon them once, completely by accident. It’s been weeks since they’ve been back and the memory of the phone call, of his hand on himself and Zayn’s voice in his ear and the visceral shock of coming just from all of that is still so very fresh in his mind.

They’re standing just outside the tour bus, engine idling loudly in the still night air. Liam is buzzing after the show but dead tired too and he thought everyone had boarded except for him but no, Louis and Zayn are standing there, close together, smoke billowing and swirling around their heads.

He hazards a glance up in Zayn’s direction and Zayn is looking right back at him. Directly. His cigarette is lit and half-smoked, smoke rising lazily and circling in the air above his head. Hypnotic. Liam keeps watching. He doesn’t know what to say. His tongue feels very fat and full in his mouth. He’s having troubling swallowing.

“These things will kill ya, you know,” is all he says. And he means it as a joke, but it’s not a joke, not the tone of his voice or the cut of his eyes, or the way his fingers curl in on themselves, nails digging into the palms of his hands. He misses Zayn with every fibre of his being and somehow seeing him laughing and joking and smoking with Louis outside those looming black tour buses alights a flame inside him he cannot quench.

“Gotta die somehow,” is all Zayn says, and his voice is cold as fine snow, sharp as broken glass, and Louis just stares, cigarette burning down between his fingers, mouth open in a comical O as he watches these two silly boys who love each other pretend that they don’t.

And Zayn hasn’t made a move towards him either and Liam is in a very _what the fuck_ mood and he walks right up to Zayn and grabs the cigarette out of his hand and puts it to his own mouth and suck in long and hard, gets it right into his lungs and exhales, all the while staring right into Zayn’s face. And He doesn’t even cough, not a bit.

“Liam,” is all Zayn says. Just one word. His fingers twitch. “Don’t do that.”

“Why?” Liam says as he puts it back to his lips, eyes on Zayn’s mildly shocked and mildly angry face. Zayn snatches it out of Liam’s hand fast, before Liam can fight back. He doesn’t even want to fight back.

Liam tries very hard to swallow then. His throat is dry and his mouth is dry and his lips are dry.

He looks at Zayn and thinks about his lips and his mouth and everything that is connected to those two things.

“I know it’s a bad habit, ok? I know. I get it.” Zayn throws the butt down, grinds his heel over it. “I know it is. It’s a horrible habit and I don’t want to be a bad influence.”

“On who?” Liam says.

“Well, on you, Liam. On you. God forbid I unintentionally corrupt your innocent arse.” But he sounds like he’s joking and he sounds sarcastic and Liam doesn’t know what to believe because he can’t allow himself to believe what Zayn is actually saying.

And he stops anyway because Louis is listening and he’s fucking _grinning_ and loving every second and Zayn is just staring and not saying a fucking word and Liam feels like the world’s biggest idiot and his mouth tastes awful and he suddenly feels very nauseous just like he used to and if he doesn’t leave now he might just vomit.

“Wow. For a minute there I thought maybe you were going to say something intelligent. Like I dunno. Like you were going to quit. Or like you actually cared.”

Zayn crosses his arms and doesn’t say anything.

“But silly me you can’t just be actually honest with me about anything and—

“And?” Zayn says. He’s trying to play it cool, Liam can see that, but he also hears the shaking voice and the dark questioning eyes and the throat working nervously but he’s not cutting him a break. Not tonight.

“And nothing,” Liam says and shakes his head and climbs the bus steps and lets the door shut behind him with a solid, final whoosh.

He no longer seeks Zayn and Louis out when they go for smoke breaks.

And then he gets mad. Full on anger. He sits down the next night and fills up bright pink Post-It notes of smoking facts and sticks them everywhere Zayn might find them, his bathroom mirror, his suitcase, the inside of his wallet, his fucking pack of smokes.

_Smoking ages your skin faster, second only to sun exposure for giving you wrinkles_

_Smoking makes you stink! Your hair, breath and clothes smell bad_

_Some of the toxins found in cigarette smoke are found in items such as rat poison, toilet cleaners and formaldehyde, which is used to preserve dead animals_

And so on.

He doesn’t always see when Zayn finds one, but he can tell when it has happened. Sometimes Zayn is irritated, grumpy, frowning when he sees Liam, lips pursed and hands clenched. Sometimes he’s sighing and shaking his head and grinning and biting his lip and looking resigned. Sometimes he tilts his head and watches Liam with this _look_ that makes Liam blush right down his thighs. But, still they don’t talk, they don’t kiss, they don’t acknowledge the thing between them, quiet and still and swirling as smoke.

But the silence can’t last forever, of course it can’t. There’s too much and it’s too big to ignore for long. They finish a show and they hug, sweaty and panting and grinning, fingers clenching each other’s, pinkies hooking and tangling painfully and a shared look an acknowledgement that there’s something else there to explore, to discuss.

And that night they do, after the other boys have gone to their rooms, to their own outings, their own liaisons. Zayn shows ups in Liam’s room, quiet and thoughtful, body thrumming with intent, with a lot of words unspoken, but ready to be spilled.

“I do love you, you know?” Zayn says immediately, because he wants Liam to understand.

And Liam nods. He knows. “I love you too. You must know that.”

Zayn smiles. “Still good to hear though.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” It is. It’s always good to hear.

"And I've missed you," Zayn says. The door shuts behind him.

"You see me every day," Liam says, just to be a little shit, because he knows exactly what Zayn means, and he feels exactly the same way.

Zayn moves closer with intent. “What do you want Liam? When you look at me the way you do?” He moves closer and closer still. “Tell me.”

And Liam does.

“It's like I'm jealous, ok? I really am,” he says at last. It feels like a huge weight is lifted from his body with the release of these words. “I am ok? I see what you’re doing with your mouth and that cigarette and and—”

“And what?” Zayn watches very closely.

“I want you to do what you were doing with your cigarette to me. I want you to do that to me. All of it. Your mouth your lips your tongue all of it. To me. To my body. All of it.”

And Zayn nods and they tumble onto the bed and and Zayn kisses and kisses him until Liam is breathless and panting, jeans pushed down his hips and shirt rucked up his chest as Zayn proceeds to kiss all the skin he can find. And those lips, that tongue, the hot breath skating over hot skin. It's everything Liam can do to hold on and not finish in his pants right there.

"Is this good?" Zayn whispers as he sucks on Liam's chin, his earlobes, the tip of his nose, his elbow, the back of his knees, his bottom lip, over and over again. "Is this what you wanted?" he says as his clever tongue curls and licks, darting out and finding spots Liam didn't even know he had. He manages to make a noise of assent, at least he thinks he does, arching and twisting under Zayn's fingers and lips.

And Liam holds himself still as possible while Zayn’s mouth — his mouth! — finally circles the tip of Liam’s cock, impossibly soft and impossibly wet, and then slides down further and further, all the way down to the base, tongue flicking up and down, breathing in and out, sucking and breathing, smiling and exhaling over and over.

“Fuck, Zayn,” Liam manages to say. “ _Zayn_.”

Zayn doesn’t speak. He can’t, with a mouth filled with Liam’s cock. Liam twines his fingers in Zayn’s hair, pulling and tugging harder than he means to only because he can’t help himself.

And before it's all over he's struggled to move. “Let me,” Liam manages at last, his mouth dry and jaw aching. He needs to fill it with something and he can’t think of anything more important than Zayn’s cock. And before Zayn can answer properly Liam is there, licking and sucking and sucking him down, all the way, hands and tongue working hard, the way he always saw Zayn doing, the way he always envisioned himself doing, except now he’s doing it to Zayn himself and fuck the noises Zayn is making above him are everything he ever imagined and more and he comes against the bed just before Zayn comes in his mouth and Liam doesn’t even pull back, he just stays there sucking and swallowing until it’s all over.

“Liam,” is all Zayn can say. “Liam.” It sounds like a benediction like a prayer like the whole world combined in one word that means nothing and everything at the same time.

Liam grins and wraps his arms around Zayn’s middle tightly, convulsively, his face finding Zayn’s stomach, lips moving there, licking the sweat and kissing the heated skin and feeling Zayn’s fingers in his hair, twining and pulling and stroking.

Eventually he moves up and up, using what strength he has left in his arms to move up until his face is close to Zayn’s, their mouth finding each others, kissing and kissing and sucking, breathing in and out and telling each other they love each other with mouths that breathe fire.

\--

And then, weeks and weeks later, naked and sated and sweaty in another bed:

“How’s it going?” Liam says, because he asks sometimes, just to check.

“What?”

“The quitting.”

Zayn shrugs. “You tell me,” he says.

Zayn slips one of Liam’s long, pale slender fingers into his mouth, slowly, deliberately. He sucks it, tongue curling and moving, cheeks hollowing. His eyelashes flutter. He opens them to watch Liam’s response which is pretty much what he was expecting. Liam’s mouth falls open and his head falls back and he tries very very hard not to moan.

“It’s an addiction,” Zayn says at last. "An oral fixation, some might say."

“My fingers?” Liam says, leaning close, closer. He’s having a hard time breathing steadily.

Their lips touch.

Zayn breathes out. 

“ _You._ ”

\--


End file.
